In this movie we encounter the new form of alien life, which does not use flying saucers or other means of aerial transportation (nor any sort of conventional transportation) to reach the humanity and invade.

Instead, they choose to invade through the DNA. Attracting a human being with a mystery first, a very visually appealing and, at the same time, a frightening mystery, which then gets them further in, only to project the reflection of their own dreams and fears back onto them.

In this infinite loop, however, a sort of accelerated evolutionary moment takes place. It resolves itself through a mutation. The mutation occurs on the level of DNA, so that any future representatives of humanity carry this important firmware upgrade, which also happens to be the new form of life.

“A biological virus”

“Malware”

“Annihilation”

A bad choice of words.
Or maybe a bad interpretation.

For some reason, the only existing antonym of malware is “anti-virus”. But then, what about an~nihilation? Annihilatus. From Ad- ‘to’ + nihilism ‘nothing’. Bring into nothing. What if the virus is actually “goodware”, what if its only intention is to make things possible in a safe way?

Then there’s no need for an anti-virus, in fact, it becomes like a temporary drug and reality itself can act as an anti-virus, bringing the perception back to itself on its own terms. This is where the mutation takes place, so that it becomes biologically impossible to be the same anymore. Transformation inscribes itself into matter. A change in consciousness that is accompanied by a biological mutation is bound to persist.

Image by Nobel Truong

In that same way Stalker by Tarkovsky talks about a similar topic, but in a different way. While the change in Annihilation occurs on the level DNA, the change in Stalker occurs on the level of perception and spirit, rewiring the neuronal links, reframing the belief system, ideological deprogramming.